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Swiped Out: 7 Dating App Alternatives to Tinder

Since growing from a small start-up into a powerhouse that promises more than one billion swipes and fifteen million matches a day, Tinder has set the standard in dating apps. But if you’re looking for a more niche experience, a number of services with innovative algorithms have recently popped up to help you snag a date, with ever-more complex and targeted methods. A month ahead of Valentine’s Day, we’ve rounded up seven clever matchmaking apps to help you find the one.

HappnOf all the dating apps, Happn just might be the most provocative. Once you download the service, a GPS keeps track of your every move and then shows you other users you’ve crossed paths with throughout the day, and exactly where you’ve rubbed elbows. Elevating into an algorithm the average sidewalk dance we all do when we see a cutie, Happn allows for a conversation only when both people match. Or, if you’d like to make eyes at someone who has not recognized you, you can send them a “charm” (10 for $1.99, if you're a man; free for women). They’ve made sure to keep things on the safe side, too, so if you elect not to like someone on your feed, that person can never make contact.

The GradePlaying the dating game is often enough to make us feel like teenagers, but The Grade, which became available for free in November, actually applies high-school logic in hopes of enriching the options for possible suitors. Like something out of **Gary Shteyngart’**s sci-fi satire Super Sad True Love Story, applicants sign up and, as they use the app, are measured by a series of criteria, including profile quality, response rate, and message quality. Then, the app automatically assigns and regularly updates a grade ranging from “A+” to “D” that other users can see. Score an “F,” and you’re expelled from the app entirely.

HingeHinge is a more welcoming option for those intimidated by the cold anonymity of online dating. Once you sign up through Facebook, the app eliminates the total-stranger issue by showing only users who are friends of friends. It’s an increasingly popular app, with its number of active accounts growing by five times in the last year and enough desirable people that, yesterday, they compiled a list of their users with a bold designation: the 30 most eligible men and women in all of New York City.

RevealrOne criticism of online dating is that it’s hard to get a sense for somebody based on a few words on a screen. Could someone’s voice divulge more? On Revealr, every user records a 20-second audio clip to accompany a pixelated profile picture. If two people like what they hear, their photos are unpixelated, and they can see their match.

MeshMesh hopes to use what you don’t like as a strategy to help you find out what you do. First, there is a mismatch function, which permits you to designate what kind of messages you don’t enjoy receiving, allowing you to give a rating from “Hate” to “Love It” of things like vulgarity and text-speak abbreviations like “LOL” and “u,” and then automatically filtering such messages into a separate folder. Then, another option asks you to answer a series of questions to assign what answers from other users should bar them from ever getting in contact.

TastebudsIt’s an age-old adage that differing taste in music can be a dealbreaker, but could the opposite lead to lasting love? Tastebuds thinks so. Once you enroll, the app inspects your library of music, assembles a list of your “favorite” artists, and then matches you up with users who have similar interests. Now, your one hundred guilty-pleasure listens to the new Katy Perry album could have romantic consequences.